airWG is pleased to present a solo exhibition of the current artist in residence M.C. Julie Yu. As an interdisciplinary artist, she uses video, music, print, exercise, performance, workshops, and installation to present social research on care while continuing her work as a freelance masseur.

Yu's artistic practices revolve around the senses of othering that are experienced while situating in- between domains, specifically based on the experience as a migrant and interdisciplinary worker under the postcolonial and capitalist cultural phenomena. She reflects on these experiences through various sub-culture inspirations and addresses the reflection with a good dose of humor. This approach is further extended to various long-term collaborative projects among art, performance and social movements fields.

The recent work of M.C. Julie Yu tries to unlock the failures of social constructs by analyzing the body's gestures of care—students napping on the table as self-care and massages as care-giving. The nuances of these tacit knowledges of an individual body are delivered via inspiration from Youtube video themes, such as tutorials and ASMR. The artist aims to rethink the replacement of care in aspects of individualization, commodification, and digitalization.

Failures to Care is an ongoing project where the slippages and mistakes between labour, sexuality and identity are highlighted in the industry of wellness along with their entanglement with resistance and solidarity. These concepts are tied to the need of the social body to feel safe and comforted by its community. As a freelance masseur, Yu’s own experiences inform the works in the exhibition as she captures moments of exhaustion and discomfort in a quest for the fulfilment of basic human needs.

Bio:
M.C. Julie Yu (b. Taipei, Taiwan, 1989) is an interdisciplinary artist who is currently based in Amsterdam, the Netherlands. She holds a BFA in Theatre Directing from Taipei National University of Arts, Taipei, Taiwan (2013) and an MA in Fine art, HKU University of the Arts Utrecht (2020). Her works include a wide variety of media, such as video, music, print, exercise, performance, workshops, and installation.

Photography by Ilya Rabinovich